Sunday, December 5, 2010

Why is it so hard letting go?

I've got an old pair of Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers. I've worn them to almost every occasion during the last years: to concerts, when I went shopping / was hanging out, to gym class, etc. Accordingly, they also look like that, namely worn out.

And although I have about a gazillion other pairs of shoes, I can't bring myself to throw them away. Two pairs are even new Converse shoes, but still I keep the old, ragged up pair.

This leads me to one question: Why do we keep holding on to something that we should have let go a long time ago? It does not only happening with shoes, clothes and other material stuff; it's the same with emotions or relationships.Maybe you've had a friend for years and you shared some good times together. But as the time passes by, you take different directions, you stop seeing each other everyday, you both meet new people and eventually grow apart. And when you finally get to catch up, you find that you have nothing in common and nothing to say to each other anymore.

Sometimes you think you are completely over a person you once loved, but still can't bring yourself to delete their number from your phone. Maybe you secretly hide a photo of them somewhere and look at it from time to time. And even when you move on, have a new life, someone new you're in love with, one day it catches up with you again. You wait in line for a coffee to go and they're playing this song, your song, the song you two used to love. It throws you off the track, and you wonder why, because you thought you had moved on. And maybe you have. But you haven't let go.

Maybe we just need to learn to be careful, not to let people in so easily. But then again, love and friendship is all about letting your guards down. And what would life be without love? We cannot protect ourselves from getting hurt, we can just hope that the people we put our trust in will be worth the pain.